Monday, February 13, 2012

Suicidal Tendencies

The article that hit home for me the most this week was Industrialism and Cultural values by Harold Innis. Innis (1950) describes civilizations as groups of people who believe that they hold some unique characteristics. These unique characteristics lead civilizations and cultural groups to believe that they are superior to others. They become obsessed with their culture leading to their own demise/decline. Recently, I have taken an interest in the concept of cultural decline, or suicide of civilizations. With the internet growing time and space now transcend creating what I feel Innis would find a very interesting paradox.

The gaming culture is something that I have become very interested in, as I belong to it. Most of my friends have different interests within this large umbrella of "gaming" culture. This article discusses how we often refer to space as relating to a civilization, but with advances of technology virtually anyone can belong to the gaming culture. This culture tends to be marginalized, but what is interesting to observe is the marginalization within the marginalized. The culture has so many different interests, that though they are considered a cohesive group they tend to destroy themselves. That is, forums and internet provide them a space to insult one another and create cliques within the culture. They also do not accept those outside of their culture and often make bold statements such as,

"I would never be friends with a "normal" person"

Or...

"If a girl isn't a gamer, I wouldn't date her"

This was seen while conducting my participant observation and Nebraska's very own Nebraskakon and a video highlights this.

Essentially, I feel that technology is contributing to cultures committing suicide or declining. What do you think?